(From company literature) Nikon's newest professional digital SLR camera delivers the ultra-high speed, outstanding image quality and precision needed for the most demanding action photography. Building on the many advances made in the D2H and D2X, Nikon has created a superior-quality camera of great responsiveness, functionality and performance, even at higher sensitivity levels. Reduced noise, improved AWB, refined AF system, advanced metering, improved display and wireless functions - all of these and many more improvements come together in the D2Hs to make it a professional camera you can rely on for superb results in even the toughest assignments.

Capable of shooting at 8 fps for a continuous burst of up to 50 images at 4.1 effective megapixels, the D2Hs inherits the best of its predecessors while also benefiting from new technologies and feedback from advances made in developing the recently announced D2X digital SLR for professionals. This impressive array of exclusive features delivers the speed, response, resolution and handling to establish the D2Hs as the professional's choice in photojournalism and sports photography.

Improved digital processing in the ASIC provides smoother shading in subjects with many gradual colour changes, such as a blue sky. The D2Hs supports the sYCC colour profile now found in many printers, so a wider range of colours can be reproduced for printing JPEG files than with the conventional sRGB colour profile.

Nikon's proprietary 3D-Color Matrix Metering II is improved with new algorithms initially developed for the D2X, letting you take the beautiful action photos you need, with rich detail, colour and smooth tone range.

Class-leading performance features inherited from its predecessor, the D2H, include instant start-up, an almost imperceptible shutter time lag of just 37ms, and an improved 11-area autofocus system. The camera is literally ready to shoot when you are.

The large 2.5-inch LCD monitor has a higher resolution of 232,000 pixels and clear, flicker-free display of images and information. The Histogram display is improved and the new selectable RGB Histogram displays let you check exposure information for each colour channel quickly, easily and accurately. Other handy displays have also been added to make your job easier, including the chronological Recent Settings list and World Time function.

As part of Nikon's Total Imaging System, the D2Hs is compatible with Nikon's growing family of digital-exclusive DX Nikkor lenses as well as the lineup of high-quality Nikkor AF lenses. When used with the SB-800 or SB-600 Speedlights, the D2Hs maximizes the potential of Nikon's Creative Lighting System with high precision flash performance, including i-TTL flash control and support for Nikon's Advanced Wireless Lighting system.

The D2Hs is compatible with the new IEEE802.11b/g Wireless Transmitter WT-2/2A, providing faster image transmission with improved security and compatibility with the latest protocols. It also allows wireless remote control of the D2Hs from a computer with Nikon Capture 4 version 4.2.1 (optional) software installed. Support for the Wireless Transmitter WT-1/1A developed for the D2H is maintained.

Another feature adopted from the D2X is support for GPS devices. These can be connected with the optional new MC-35 cable. Now you can include in your shooting data such information as latitude, longitude and altitude at the time of capture.

So I had the un-pleasure of being forced to use this camera on a 4 day sport shoot a while back. First thing that I noticed was that I couldn't make heads or tails of the autofocus settings. All I wanted to do was set it to use the center point as the main point, but use the other points for tracking if the subject started moving (I was shooting Tae Kwon Do, so there were both stationary and moving objects) As far as I could tell from the cryptic glyphs, I couldn't do this.

Second thing I noticed was that my very bendable nose kept on hitting the four way switch, which would move the focus point around. Why not just use the switch lock? Well, what if I wanted to switch the autofocus point? Sure, I could turn the lock off, but that required another step.

The ergonomics in general were just terrible, buttons were badly placed, often out of reach or too close in.

I started chimping about half way through the first day and was appalled at the image quality. I had to shoot at 1600 most of the time (event was held in a large stadium, not a lot of direct light on the floor) and the images were worse than my old Digital Rebel!

Not only was the noise terrible, but I pretty much gave up on trying to get white-balance right.

This beast was so heavy and badly balanced that by the second day I had the medics wrap my shooting hand because it was getting sore.

The only pluses I could find with this camera were that it was built like a tank, and that it was fast. But the cons outweigh the pros